192 FIVE ACRES TOO MUCH. 



whitish though somewhat weather-worn letters, he 

 had inscribed &quot; LIVE-GEESE FEATHEES.&quot; 



The truth must be told, as it always should, and 

 old Marrott had for twenty years, four times a year, 

 cruelly plucked their feathers from the living geese. 

 With the most unfeeling barbarity, he put them to 

 awful tortures, tearing from their reeking bodies 

 the natural covering and all that he and his wife 

 might not starve. How diabolical must have been 

 the wretch ! Little did he heed the poor creatures 

 when their cries, plainly as words, begged and im 

 plored mercy ; little did he pause when, finding re 

 monstrance vain, they made violent struggles to es 

 cape, and flapped their wings, and dashed themselves 

 about ; little remorse did his merciless heart experi 

 ence provided the feathers were numerous and of 

 good quality ; and if two or three died from the tor 

 ture and exposure, what did he care, provided he 

 could sell their remains for food. Was it not a 

 wonder that he had been permitted to carry on his 

 inhuman practice so long ? But his punishment 

 came at last. 



Among his flock was one, aged and venerable, that 

 he had owned from the very beginning, and which 

 had been plucked upward of eighty times. In his 

 earlier days that gander had struggled, and cried, 



